Distorted Thought (Atonal horror piece)

This might actually be my best current composition. It is my weirdest piano piece for sure.

I built the harmonies and "melodies" from a chromatic superset (3+4+5). I can explain it better if I see interest.

It took me around 5 hours to compose this piece and I have to say that it is a true nightmare to learn it and play it without many mistakes. I pray for the people who decide to start learning it hahaha. Some of the jumps are actually scary.

The piece has an improvisatory nature like some of my other compositions, but this time it is easier to imagine a horror plot behind it. Also I think there is no official performance version of the work, you can play it very different to the way I played it today. Here you have a performance a friend of mine recorded: 

I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you have any doubt or advice.

THIS IS AWESOME!! I love free atonalilty so much 

also the freeze frame from Begotten at the end of the vid was a nice touch

Te felicito porque este es un mundo un tanto difícil de manejar y es una pieza super interesante.

I am an absolute fan of some plots of atonalism or ultra-free tonality. I have studied many of those styles, but to get into composing..., and to draw an emotional conclusion, is very difficult.
This piece fulfills all those requirements for me. Congratulations.

On 10/30/2023 at 4:28 AM, jejrekmek said:

THIS IS AWESOME!! I love free atonalilty so much 

also the freeze frame from Begotten at the end of the vid was a nice touch

 

Thank you! That makes me feel better about the piece, it didn't get as much attention as I expected. And yes, what a movie! 😰

On 10/31/2023 at 4:30 PM, Luis Hernández said:

Te felicito porque este es un mundo un tanto difícil de manejar y es una pieza super interesante.

 

I am an absolute fan of some plots of atonalism or ultra-free tonality. I have studied many of those styles, but to get into composing..., and to draw an emotional conclusion, is very difficult.
This piece fulfills all those requirements for me. Congratulations.

 

Gracias! 🙂

Yes, it was a bit of a challenge, but I think listening to Scriabin and other composers helped a lot to feed my atonal intuition.

Hey Ivan,

I enjoy this atonal shift from your previous works to portray the scary feeling. You don't only use new harmonic languages, but also those expressionistic tremolos and tone clusters well to create the Halloween atmosphere, and somewhat pointillistic touch during some passages. 

13 hours ago, Ivan1791 said:

Gracias! 🙂

Sad that I am not a Spanish like Luis is and the only Spanish I know will be Hola!, or no hablo español (from google translate LoL)

Thx for sharing this wonderful work to us!

Henry

On 11/3/2023 at 9:21 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hey Ivan,

I enjoy this atonal shift from your previous works to portray the scary feeling. You don't only use new harmonic languages, but also those expressionistic tremolos and tone clusters well to create the Halloween atmosphere, and somewhat pointillistic touch during some passages. 

Sad that I am not a Spanish like Luis is and the only Spanish I know will be Hola!, or no hablo español (from google translate LoL)

Thx for sharing this wonderful work to us!

Henry

 

Glad to hear so! Yes, it was cool to experiment with another musical language, but I always try to use my intuition to make it sound musical in some way.

Yup, the tremolos are inspired by Scriabin. I agree, the distribution of pitches is done in an anti-melodic way, so kinda pointillistic.

You are welcome! I always apreciate your wonderful comments. 😁

I've always been a lover of free atonality and the avant garde, even if some people don't understand it; this is surely another piece to add to my collection of pleasantly fearsome piano writing, the likes of Finnissy and Messiaen (maybe that's a little much, but still). Seems I have much to learn with writing atonal music...

P.S. The polyrhythms are something to behold; I'm just surprised you managed to play through it all! 

3 hours ago, Awsumerguy said:

I've always been a lover of free atonality and the avant garde, even if some people don't understand it; this is surely another piece to add to my collection of pleasantly fearsome piano writing, the likes of Finnissy and Messiaen (maybe that's a little much, but still). Seems I have much to learn with writing atonal music...

P.S. The polyrhythms are something to behold; I'm just surprised you managed to play through it all! 

 

 

Free atonality can be pretty cool when done well. For example Berg's piano sonata is a favourite of mine, even if it is between tonality and free atonality.

Glad to hear that! It's an honor. I also have Messiaen as a model when writing more modern harmonic structures. My advice would be to find interesting melodic and harmonic systems you can use, and with your intuition see how well they would fit in a musical piece or what they can offer musically (fear, mystery, stopping time, humour, etc.).

Thank you haha. The reason I could play most of the polyrhythms is because I'm autistic and one day I randomly decided to master the 3:5, and after some time it is in my musical blood now. Also I love Scriabin and I got used to some of his rhythms after reading his sonatas a few times. For me the hardest part of my piece is the repeated notes of the 3rd image of the video and the jumps of the "cataclysmic" passage.

Omg i loved it!

Btw, which program did you use to write the score?.

10 hours ago, Samuel_vangogh said:

Omg i loved it!

Btw, which program did you use to write the score?.

 

Glad to hear so! And I always used Musescore, it's one of the reasons I started composing. In the case I used Musescore4 and then I edited the score images so it looked creepy.

This is awesome!!! By any chance, are you possessed by the ghost of Schoenberg??? Karlheinz Stockhausen - "Klavierstücke I-IV" would be a fitting piece to do an adaption of.

19 hours ago, Zazie Productions said:

This is awesome!!! By any chance, are you possessed by the ghost of Schoenberg??? Karlheinz Stockhausen - "Klavierstücke I-IV" would be a fitting piece to do an adaption of.

 

Perhaps? 👀 I used late Scriabin and Schoenberg as my main inspirations. Maybe a bit from other contemporary pieces but not as much.

I've only payed some attention to his Klavierstücke V.

I think this right here is an excellent example of atonality done right. Interestingly, not only is it written with that "creepy" vibe in mind, but the colors you achieved are beautiful, in a velvety, "morbid" sort of way. This is one of those pieces that benefits from being played on the kind of piano you performed on, since it kind of has that slightly honky-tonk piano chorus effect going on. The colors "pop" and become more "flavorful", for lack of a better term. The other performance is also good, but using a "cleaner" piano kind of misses that character. I also think it's neat you incorporated a very clear minor 6th chord both near the beginning of the piece and later on. It contrasts well with the spikier sections of the piece.

The near-literal knife stab is a nice touch.

It's really cool you managed to make something that's both atonal, but is also still musically appealing and engaging to listen to. Thanks for sharing, and kudos!

21 hours ago, SergeOfArniVillage said:

I think this right here is an excellent example of atonality done right. Interestingly, not only is it written with that "creepy" vibe in mind, but the colors you achieved are beautiful, in a velvety, "morbid" sort of way. This is one of those pieces that benefits from being played on the kind of piano you performed on, since it kind of has that slightly honky-tonk piano chorus effect going on. The colors "pop" and become more "flavorful", for lack of a better term. The other performance is also good, but using a "cleaner" piano kind of misses that character. I also think it's neat you incorporated a very clear minor 6th chord both near the beginning of the piece and later on. It contrasts well with the spikier sections of the piece.

The near-literal knife stab is a nice touch.

It's really cool you managed to make something that's both atonal, but is also still musically appealing and engaging to listen to. Thanks for sharing, and kudos!

 

Thank you so much! I agree it's a pretty morbid piece, and the half diminished arpeggios are like a forgotten eerie reminiscence of tonality. I'm glad my untuned piano was a fitting option for this piece haha.

I really appreciate your comment!